


Promise

by HereBeDragons



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-13
Updated: 2012-04-13
Packaged: 2017-11-03 13:44:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/381963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HereBeDragons/pseuds/HereBeDragons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Flemeth looks back on the night Prince Maric Theirin and Loghain Mac Tir visited her hut in the Korcari Wilds, many years ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promise

**Author's Note:**

> This is a new iteration of the story I submitted to the "Asunder" short story contest. In the 4th issue of "The Silent Grove," things were revealed which required me to rewrite parts of "Promise," to be more in line with this new canon. So, this is the re-worked version. 
> 
> Contains spoilers for "The Stolen Throne," and "The Silent Grove."

I have decided that the “gift” of seeing the future is actually the most abysmal curse imaginable. Or perhaps the seeing isn’t the problem. Perhaps it is all my own fault. I never have been capable of planting only those seeds that were absolutely necessary. I always plant at least a few others, just for fun.

After all, it’s not as though I really cared about the occupation of Ferelden. Well, perhaps I cared a little; I was born in Highever. But I didn’t act from any desire to drive out the Orlesians. No, I acted to set something in motion. Something I had glimpsed, and believed that just maybe I could bring to pass.

When the young prince – that foolish, naïve, and surprisingly charming prince – escaped into the forest, I couldn’t let the opportunity pass. I could have helped him from afar. I could have arranged for him to ascend the throne with almost no bloodshed, and far quicker than it took him to do it on his own. But I couldn’t resist the opportunity to play, just a little. I don't think of myself as the cat to his mouse, though. A cat always kills its plaything eventually, and I let Maric live. Oh yes, I let him live, far longer, perhaps, than he wanted.

When Maric and his resentful companion were brought into my front “garden,” I was so certain I knew exactly what was going to happen, so certain that with only a gentle breath in one direction or the other, I could guide everything into place, just the way I wanted. For years, certainly, everything went according to plan. But tonight I learned that one of those "unnecessary" seeds I planted might have grown fruit that would poison all my efforts.

“Keep him close and he will betray you. Each time worse than the last.” 

When I said that about the surly Loghain Mac Tir, it simply wasn’t true. There was nothing of prophecy in it, not even the self-fulfilling kind, as it turned out. It was a lie, one I told just to amuse myself. And it did prove amusing, many times over the years, in spite of never leading to any actual betrayal. All it led to was a great deal of self-doubt and even more self-loathing on the part of a man whom I’d never expected would climb as high as he climbed. I’d ask the Maker to damn Loghain Mac Tir for the inconvenience he caused me, only I’m fairly certain the Maker would laugh in my face and say that I deserved whatever happened. Fair enough, I suppose. 

That night, so many years ago, inside the close warmth of my hut, I spoke to Maric of things to come, while Loghain shivered outside next to a fire I had made certain would not thoroughly warm him. With the taste of a ripe apple still on my lips, I spoke to Maric of things I had seen and of things I hoped to see. Not that I told the prince which was which; I let him believe they were all fated, written in the stars and only glimpsed by the most arcane of magics. I told him of the Blight that would come, one of the things I’d genuinely foreseen. And I spoke to him of dragons. He had laughed. 

"Dragons? They're all dead, aren't they? Gone for centuries, at the hands of Nevarran hunters." 

"They are not all dead," I had told him. "Some day, you will see this for yourself, with your own eyes." I suppose I could have shown him that very day, but what would have been the fun in that? "What you must understand now," I continued, "is that the fate of dragons is tied up with the fate of all of Thedas. Dragons must be protected from the ignorance of mankind.

"What I need from you," I told him, "is a promise. I will spare your life tonight, and in return, one day some years from now, you will be summoned to a place where you can give assistance to the dragons that remain in this land. And you must promise that, when this happens, you will leave Ferelden and travel to this silent grove, and do whatever is asked you of you." 

He just stared at me, his blue eyes narrowed in thought. I could almost hear the wheels turning. He didn't trust me. Perhaps he had some reliable instincts, after all. "You're asking me to abandon Ferelden?"

"Yes, after your children are grown, and Ferelden no longer needs you."

"I don't understand . . ." he had said. This was genuinely hilarious. Of course he didn’t understand. Even had I tried to explain, he would not have understood. While Maric had many admirable qualities, an excess of cleverness was not among them. 

I had laughed then, a boisterous cackling laugh, which caused Maric to flinch. "I don't expect you to understand. All you need to know is that the blood of dragons is the blood of the world, and if they are destroyed, so shall mankind perish, utterly. I am asking you to save all of Thedas. Surely, that is worth one small promise."

Then, I had fixed him with my gaze.

Is it vain of me to say that I fixed him with the gaze that had stopped grown men in their tracks? That had led hundreds to their deaths? The gaze that was the last thing Lord Conobar saw before I blasted him into the Black City?

No, it is not vanity. It is merely the truth. I have done a great many powerful magics, and my reputation is such that people bow before me, even when I don’t especially want them to.

Although, it does amuse me to think that, of the many stories that are told about me, not one of them managed to hit upon the truth. The truth of what had really happened in the tallest tower of Highever Castle where I had been imprisoned by a man who claimed to love me. Yes, I called a demon to me, and yes, I used the demon’s power to help me destroy Conobar and as many of his men as I cared to slaughter. Not enough of them, apparently. I spared the captain of his guard, a man called Sarim Cousland, a man who went on to sire the lineage that might prove to be my undoing . . . But I'm getting ahead of myself. Where was I? Oh yes. In all the stories, I am possessed by the demon and become an abomination. How is it possible that no one ever realized the demon was not the one in control?

At any rate, that night in my hut, I fixed Maric with my gaze. “So," I asked. "Are you are willing to make me this promise? And never speak of it, not to anyone, ever?” He had given his word before entering my house, and couldn’t really back out of it now. But he had shown excellent manners upon his arrival, and I thought politeness was the least I could do to return the favor.

After the briefest pause, he said, “Yes. I promise. When I am summoned to . . . wherever you wish me to go . . . I will leave Ferelden, give whatever assistance is asked of me.”

I nodded, satisfied, and then crossed the room, kneeling beside the chair where he sat. I had planted all my seeds, and now I wanted Maric to plant one of his. “There is one more thing I would ask of you tonight.” I had spoken in a quiet, seductive voice that was quite unlike me. I still don’t really know why. I could have forced him to do whatever I wanted. But I am a woman, after all, and on that night I wanted him to come to me willingly.

“What is that?” His voice was barely more than a whisper.

I placed my hand on his arm. Projecting a glamour, so he would see me as I had been when I was young and my hair was dark and my lips were red, and I possessed a beauty that others had described as “wild,” I looked up into his face.

“Lay with me.”

His eyes grew wide. “You want me to . . . what?”

“Lay with me,” I had repeated. The glamour was working. I could see from the look in his eyes that he found me beautiful. This was going to be easier than I had imagined. So, again, I decided to play with him. Just a bit. “Do I not please you?” I asked. “I could look different.” I shifted my features to those of the woman to whom Maric had been betrothed at birth. “Perhaps you would prefer Rowan beneath you? Or someone more exotic?” I assumed the visage of an elf, and gazed up at him through violet-tinted eyes. “What shall it be?” Then I became myself again, holding onto just the tiniest bit of hope that this was what he would choose.

Maric shook his head as if to clear it. “What sort of magic is this?” he asked.

I laughed. “What sort of magic do you want it to be?” I stood, and took one of his hands in my own, pulling him to stand in front of me.

“Lay with me,” I whispered. Then, I leaned up so my lips were less than an inch from his. “Lay me with . . . King Maric.”

He came to me then, and planted the seed that was the cornerstone of all my plans for the future. I had known he would; one of the few things I’d seen with clarity was the dark-haired girl who be born from our union. Later, he would sire other children, but the girl was the one I needed for my ritual to succeed.

Afterwards, I heard quiet footsteps outside the hut as the man who was not yet Maric’s friend tried to peer in the window. I told the future king it was time for him to go. 

At the door, Maric turned back to me. “Who are you? I mean, really. Who are you?”

Oh, how I had laughed. “You know my name. Asha’bellanar. Or Flemeth, if you prefer. You could call me Clarabelle, if you like. It’s all the same to me. What you really want to know is what am I. Isn’t that right?” He nodded, having the good grace to look embarrassed. “I suppose that what I am depends on who you ask. Am I the Witch of the Wilds? An abomination? A prophet, a seer? Or merely an old hag who talks too much?” I stepped close to him, looking directly into his eyes. Maric shifted nervously, but didn’t look away. Good. When he had arrived, I hadn’t been particularly impressed. If anything, his companion had shown the stronger will, and far more of the rage which kept people focused on their goals long after those who did things merely for “love” had given up. But now I saw strength in the boy, and hoped it would be enough to carry him through what was to come. For his sake, and mine.

So I gave him an honest answer. Not that I wasn’t frequently honest when it suited me, but this felt different. As though I owed him something, some small boon, for all that he was giving to me. “Since you asked me what I am, I’ll tell you. I am a woman. Nothing more, nothing less. A woman who has known love and pain and power and sorrow, and wants . . . to not always be so alone.”

 

That night, I believed in the vision I had foreseen, a true vision, albeit blurry, like watching fish swimming in a running stream: a child, conceived during a dark ritual and born of an old god and a mother of royal birth, a child I could bind to me. Not a daughter, but for the first time in my life, a son. A son I could raise to be whatever I wanted him to be.

As time passed, I continued to believe. My daughter grew into the woman I molded her to be. Maric became king, and Ferelden prospered under his rule. The Blight came, as expected. Even if I could have stopped it, I would not have. The essence within the archdemon at the front of the horde was the cornerstone of my entire plan. 

Even tonight, having learned that the archdemon has appeared on the surface, and the Grey Wardens will leave Redcliffe in the morning for Denerim to face it and end the Blight, part of me still believes. The Cousland girl - a many-times great granddaughter of that guard captain long ago - will do anything to save her beloved Ferelden, and my daughter is with her. The moment I had foreseen all those long years ago is at hand. All that must happen is for my Morrigan to perform the ritual with a Grey Warden, to lay with a man who carries the darkspawn taint. Together, they would conceive a new being who would be more than any being that had ever walked this earth. A being who would belong entirely to me. I was so close to succeeding . . . and yet it was possible that everything would fall apart, now, at the very end.

Because I hadn’t foreseen that the man I created with that tiny little lie - “keep him close and he will betray you” - would come back to haunt me. That those words had shaped an outlaw, the son of farmers, into something he would not have otherwise become. Those words, and the mental anguish they caused him, had turned Loghain Mac Tir into a man capable of monstrosities, as well as acts of supreme self-sacrifice and loyalty. Both the greatest hero Ferelden had seen in centuries, and the man who had fallen so far he seemed beyond redemption. A man who was strong and brave and noble, as well as flawed and utterly human. The sort of man that an impressionable young woman would find herself unable to kill, so he was now a Grey Warden as well. The sort of man an impressionable young woman might even be able to love. Maric’s bastard - a boy who could have been so easily manipulated, who would have done anything the Cousland girl had asked of him - had abandoned her, and she had needed someone at her side.

So the Warden would ask Loghain Mac Tir to perform the ritual. And if he refused, all my plans would be in ruins. He might fear that a child conceived in this manner could someday threaten Ferelden, that he would have no part in dark magic of this sort. He might insist on sacrificing himself so the earnest young woman who had become his commander could survive. Perhaps she loved him enough to convince him to do this for her sake, and perhaps he loved her enough to agree. But that seemed . . . unlikely. And if Loghain refused . . . that, as they say, would be the end of that. That sodding, surly young man I could have killed so easily that night years ago in the Korcari Wilds, and the descendant of a guard captain I should never have spared. Together, they had the ability to destroy all my plans, and, worst of all, neither of them had the slightest clue of the power they held in their hands. 

 

The limits of magic are frustrating. It would have been so easy to avoid this problem, so easy to remove these obstacles, had I been able to foresee all that would come to pass. Then again, the limits of magic are also perhaps the only things entertaining enough to keep me going all these many years. I'd be bored to death if I really knew as much as people give me credit for knowing.

Ah well. I would know soon enough what Mac Tir decided. Perhaps I would yet have the son I had longed for these many years. And if not . . . well, things were stirring elsewhere. This business with the mages in Kirkwall - another of Maric's children at its center - would be amusing to watch. And apples were ripening on the trees. How I do love apples.


End file.
